As if the American image needed more cleaning up in France, two drunk US tourists eluded Eiffel Tower security and managed to sleep inside it. French security guards found them in the morning and opened the Tower late. The most shocking part of this story is that tourists found a place to stay in Paris for less than €500.
In today's edition:
San Fran work ruled unsafe
Blind Side family strikes back
Keyboard Strokes
🔑 Key Stories
San Francisco Office Unsafe?
Federal employees in San Francisco were told to work remotely due to crime concerns
San Francisco’s Nancy Pelosi Federal Building contains offices of the US Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and other government divisions
Per the San Francisco Chronicle, the area near the building is “home to one of the city’s most brazen open-air drug markets, where dozens of dealers and users congregate on a daily basis”
On August 4, an HHS executive issued a memo telling its employees to work remote “for the foreseeable future” due to office safety concerns
Dig Deeper
It’s unclear if the other federal agencies that use the building have taken any action. “The building is a safe and secure space,” a spokesperson for the building manager said
$1.2B “Revenge P*rn” Ruling
A Texas jury awarded a woman $1.2B after she sued her ex-boyfriend for spreading explicit photos of her
The woman, identified in court documents, as “D.L.,” broke up with her boyfriend in 2021. During their relationship, she had sent him explicit photos of her
After the breakup, her ex posted those photos to social media and a p*rn site. He made fake accounts to try to trick her family and friends into seeing them, tagged her employer in posts, harassed her with scam numbers, and spread her address online
Last Friday, a jury ordered the ex-boyfriend to pay D.L. $200M for her suffering and $1B in extra fines
Dig Deeper
“While [the fines] in this case [are] unlikely to be recovered, the…verdict gives DL back her good name,” D.L.’s lead attorney said in a statement. “The communication from the jury is that you make it your mission to ruin someone emotionally for the rest of your life, then you are going to be facing a judgment that’s going to ruin you”
Italy Capping Flight Prices
Italy’s government plans to cap domestic airfares to two Italian islands amid rising prices
Airlines use algorithms to determine ticket pricing, a process known as “dynamic pricing.” That means that tickets get more expensive during busy times
A surge in tourism to Italy is driving up airfare there. Plane tickets to two Italian islands, Sicily and Sardinia, are up as much as 830% from full-year averages
Italy’s government is now proposing capping the price of airfare to those islands at 200% above their average price. Several airlines criticized Italy’s proposal and have suggested it would violate EU law
Dig Deeper
Ryanair, Europe’s largest airline by passenger totals, called the proposal “ridiculous and illegal”
The EU announced on Monday that it is investigating Italy’s proposal to determine if it infringes upon EU law
Politicians in Italy’s government have claimed the proposal is legal under an EU law that allows for price controls “only in specific cases…to ensure both territorial connectivity and affordability”
Death Cap Caper
An Australian woman is under scrutiny after three people died from a suspected mushroom poisoning
In late July, Erin Patterson, invited two couples – one of which was her ex-in-laws – to lunch. She fed them beef Wellington
Three of her guests died within a week, and one is still in critical condition. Police later said they were likely poisoned with deadly “death cap” mushrooms
Patterson has since admitted to throwing out a food dehydrator and has changed some aspects of her story. She faces no charges, denies any wrongdoing, and said she bought the mushrooms from two stores
Dig Deeper
On Tuesday, the Australian Mushroom Growers Association released a statement claiming that death caps “only grow in the wild.” There have been no mushroom recalls in her region of Australia since the poisoning
What is a VPN?
Together with Surfshark
Surfshark’s VPN – Virtual Private Network – is an app that prevents websites from tracking your online activity
VPNs work by encrypting your search activity and hiding your location
This means no more pop-up advertisements or website cookies
It also means you can stream TV shows and movies only available in other countries and find cheaper airline tickets (airlines show customers different prices depending on where they access the internet)
What else? The internet can be a scary place: Hackers can spy on people through their webcams, listen to them through their phones, and steal identities with malware
Surfshark makes it easy to protect yourself. Simply create an account, download their VPN app, log in, and start browsing safely
Dig Deeper
Millions of people around the world trust Surfshark for real-time online protection. Plus, one subscription can be used on unlimited devices!
Surfshark is offering Roca readers up to 82% off 2-year plans with 2 months free (you could potentially save more on a plane ticket using Surfshark’s VPN than the cost of their annual plan)
🍿 Popcorn
ICYMI
True Oher False? The “Blind Side” family accused of tricking Michael Oher into a conservatorship has called his lawsuit a “shakedown.” They say he threatened to go public if they didn’t pay him $15M
The rich get poorer? According to Swiss banks UBS and Credit Suisse, the US lost 1.7M adult millionaires and 17,260 $100-millionaires last year
Calling 9-1-done: A Minnesota city’s entire police force resigned, citing insufficient pay. The Goodhue, MN, police chief says the force's hourly rate – $22 – is not nearly enough
Wildcard
Close encounters of the BS kind: Peruvian authorities have accused gold mining gangs of staging “alien” attacks to scare locals from visiting the mines and taking the gold themselves
Unfair, Ryanair: Ryanair charged an elderly British couple £110 ($140) for new boarding passes after they mistakenly checked in to the wrong flight
Surf’s down, mate: Four Australian tourists and two Indonesians were found safe on surfboards days after they went missing at sea. Heavy rains had stranded them
👇 What do you think?
Today's Poll:
Today's Question:
Is capping airfares like Italy is doing a good idea?
Reply to this email with your answers!
See yesterday's results below the Wrap!
🌯 Roca Wrap
News companies should give you just the facts, so readers can form their own opinions. To that end, we're trying a new Wrap format, in which we summarize a hot-button topic and let you decide what you think about the topic.
In November, Suzie Cheikho received a warning from the large Australian insurance company that had employed her for 18 years. The company said her output was insufficient and put her on a “performance improvement plan.”
Three months later, Cheikho was fired for being unresponsive, missing meetings, and failing to work. As part of her dismissal, she was presented with extensive data that showed her company had been tracking her computer activity. Specifically, the data monitored her computer interactions over 49 work days from October to December.
According to the data, she did not work her full hours on 44 days; started late on 47 days; finished early on 29 days; and performed no work on four days. She often had “very low keystroke activity,” and over 320 hours during the period in question, recorded zero keystrokes.
Over the entire October through December period, she averaged 54 keystrokes per hour (for context, it has taken 160 keystrokes to write this sentence). The company said her typing rate proved “she was not presenting for work and performing work as required.”
Cheikho denied the accuracy of the data and said she was “targeted due to her mental health issues.” She made a claim to Australia’s Fair Work Commission, but they sided with the employer.
Cheikho’s case has drawn attention to keystroke tracking: The use of software that tracks employees’ computer behavior. One keystroke tracking software describes itself as such: “The [software] detects mouse and keyboard movement in the active window of a user’s computer. It does not log keystrokes…data is aggregated and categorized in numerous ways: productive vs. unproductive activity, focus time vs. multitasking, email vs. meeting software vs. social media, etc.”
Companies that create and use the software say it helps them identify people who aren’t working, are burned out, or are unproductive. The company described above says the software can “objectively measure shifts in productivity,” “spot early signs of burnout and disengagement,” and “identify trends and outliers in employees’ work habits.”
But the software’s critics say it violates privacy, gives employers too much control, and blurs the line between work and personal life. While some softwares don’t record individual letters or actions, others do, which could theoretically let employers look at their employees’ conversations and private messages.
Let us know what you think! Send thoughts to [email protected]!
Should keystroke tracking be legal?
Would your colleagues be better workers if they knew they were being monitored?
Would you be a better worker if you knew you were being monitored?
Would you work for a company if you knew it used keystroke tracking?
Should employers have access to your browsing history on your work computer?
🌊 Roca Clubhouse
Yesterday's Poll:
Have you seen The Blind Side?
Yes: 75%
No: 25%
Yesterday's Question:
Do you believe in coincidence?
Allen from Manchester, Iowa: "No! It's all GOD’S will! "
Joseph from St. Petersburg, Florida: “Coincidences are not a matter of belief, but rather recognition. Coincidences are what make the world go around!”
William: “Yes, when two people think of the same thing at the same time , like American Telegraph and Bell on the patent for the telephone, so yes it does happen.”
Jane from Illinois: “No. Synchronicity, yes.”
Linda from Wauwatosa, Wisconsin: “Yes! I was building houses in Cambodia in January with my husband and adopted Cambodian daughter and we were randomly placed with another family for the “build”. At lunch one day, I was talking to the other Mom and she mentioned that she had worked at the Brookfield, IL Zoo years ago. I know one person who has worked at that zoo many years ago so I threw out her name. Her jaw dropped. She said “I was on a team of 4 people and Cynthia was one of them!” I got the 2 of them reconnected after 30 years while having lunch in Cambodia. Yes, I believe in coincidences!”
Yesterday's Wrap Replies:
SM from St. Louis: “It seems that even with the gift (curse?) of a history with scores of foreign intervention gone wrong, the US can't seem to keep their nose out of other countries' business. What's worse is that they teach the American way of double-speak backed by guns large enough that people don't call you out on it. Diplomacy is rarely (if ever) encouraged, and most countries are worse off for it. And god forbid a democratic nation wants something that even indirectly affects US interests. If Bin Laden wasn't enough to change this terrible practice, I'm not sure anything will be.”
🧠 Final Thoughts
We hope your weeks are going well. Please share your thoughts on today's Wrap. We love hearing your takes on the news we cover.
Have a nice Wednesday!
—Max and Max
